ETF : What's It Worth ?

My information about Exchange Traded Funds (ETF)is from Investopedia. It is the leading source of financial information on the web. My opinions on what ETF's represent in actual value to holders are my own. According to Investopedia ETF's track indices. That would include but not limited to Standard & Poors 500, NASDAQ Power Shares (QQQ), commodities such as gold, oil, materials etc.But because they only track the ETF's don't actually own. Conversely mutual funds own actual shares incorporated in their respective indices. Consequently mutual funds publish daily the net asset value (NAV) of the fund. Exchange traded funds do not publish NAV's. Because they don't own the shares.Every shareholder of ETF's effectively rely on arbitragers to keep the price of ETF's roughly in line with the theoretical underlying value of the stocks or commodities or bonds that make up the index.So the value of the ETF that trades from second to second is what the arbitragers say it is. Shareholders effectively take the word of some unknown person about the fair value of the ETF's at any given moment. Obviously what the price will be in the next moment is not guaranteed by the arbitrager. This reality leaves open the possibility of the tail wagging the dog. The arbitrager may engage in a bear or bull raid in the ETF which could impact actual prices of the real shares that are traded on the exchange.Let's fast forward to an unlikely but possible scenario. Suppose the market crashes. What does an ETF shareholder really own? Legally the shareholder owns a tracking index.Can one cash that in any where? If a mutual fund crashes the shareholders own the residual shares in the fund.Those are actual deeds to real companies.

Harriet Tubman: Twenty Dollar Bill Collector

Want the electorate to read about history and maybe get them to vote with a liberal bias in the exercise.?Put a controversial picture on currencies.That currency will become a best seller so to speak.Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill.Her de facto smudge will broadcast a one dimensional evocation of slavery in America.Yet again we are presented with a bill for reparations.I didn't run up the bill so I'm not going to pay. Rather slam the door on the invasion of my privacy.Looked up Tubman on Wikipedia. The length of the scrolling comments suggests an introduction to a Russian novel.Like the one demential icon on the face of the bill only half the story of Tubman was dwelled on-her life in America as a slave.But how did she get here?Her parents were shipped here in slave ships. Why were her parents chosen to be on the slave ships? Because tribes in West Africa wanted to trade with slave traders.Did Harriet Tubman make any public remarks about the brothers and sisters way back in Africa for making her life miserable? None was on Wikipedia.The impetus for Tubman's bill brainwash came from our African American president. Evidently he's not yet satisfied with billing for white guilt. Treasury secretary Jack Lew was the operative, Jacks another guy who was on Wall Street and went to Harvard. Shouldn't there be a bounty on Wall Street bankers who also went to Harvard?Two tens for a twenty please.Almost forgot.Tubman was a slave in Maryland! Maryland was a northern state that fought for the Union Army. You know the Union Army, it was run by Abe Lincoln. Abe's Emancipation Proclamation only applied to Confederate States. How disingenuous can a black rights icon be? Cant trust politicians.Why doesn't the teachers union National Education Association mention that? Because it doesn't fit the narrative that leads to votes, power and money from liberal democrats.

Art Manipulation

Art by definition is creative.The artist is necessarily uniquely value added.Now take Christopher Wool.His word painting titled "Apocalypse Now" sold at Christie's for $26.4 million on October 4, 2013.The 1988 painting consisted of a 7 foot white canvas with stenciled letters spelling the written phrase from Marlon Brando's character Colonel Kurtz of the movie of the same name as the painting. The painting read, " SELL THE HOUSE SELL THE CAR SELL THE KIDS".Where's the "unique" ? Stencil letters, white canvas and borrowed words!It's not art.But like penny stocks that grow into dollar stocks one can make money IF you are in at a penny.It's called "penny stock" manipulation or fraud.It's simple. Manipulators take a corporate shell and issue shares among themselves .Then each player subsides market makers.Then just pass small portions of the stock to and from each other at ever higher and higher prices.At the same time hire public relations firms to issue press releases about the companies bright prospects. It's known as "Pump and dump".Now substitute Christopher Wool art as the corporate shell. Now bring in original low cost investors in Wool art. They would be largely made up of Wall Street operators. They understand how to get prices of stocks higher. The same principles apply to getting art prices up.For example. They put their personal collections out to loan in high profile exhibits like the Guggenheim.Donate to the Guggenheim to make sure Wool's works will get a credible show. This includes "experts"gushing over a stenciled canvas!Now for the payoff.Take the Wool canvas to Christie's.Have operatives from original investment group phone in bids.Voila.The gavel goes down at $26.4 million for a painting that sold in the thousands in the early 90's.The bid is shared by the originals. But the object of the exercise was to get the value of their holdings marked up. Which it was. Art works can serve as collateral at the banks."Apocalypse Now" was collateral at Bank Of America and Later JP Morgan. It was pledged by the seller at Christie's David Ganek.

Do High Speed Trading Profits Support Wall Street Banks? What Would Happen If Profits Went Away?

Think of a row boat over the Marianas Trench. It's 36,069 feet deep. Mount Everest would be out of sight with a mile and one half from its summit to water level.Could that be a valid analogy of the height of the stock market and its reasonable value? If you subtract QE 2 that till recently was running at a trillion dollars a year of bond buying and trillion dollar deficits by our irresponsible government. Add that to all the stimulus from central banks like European Union, Japan and China.What is the value of stocks without this alchemy of money-printing support? What could possibly go wrong? Here's a thought. The recent glare of public scrutiny of High Frequency Trading coupled with S.E.C.and Department Of Justice and F.B.I. investigations could determine rather quickly if this type of trading is in fact illegal. Critics claim that high frequency trading is constructively front running legitimate orders from the public.If that HFT trading was stopped immediately what would be the financial ramifications? The question is . How much of the bottom line of Wall Street banks profit is tied to this type of trading? If it were stopped how much of their earnings would go away? Could the banks remain stable and pass stress tests if a portion of earnings were ruled illegal? Some years ago there were only three major exchanges-New York, American, NASDAQ.Now there are 13 public exchanges and 45 "dark pools" and 200 "internalizers". These have become for profit exchanges and off-exchange trading platforms .They sell access for money. That access enables firms like Moragn Stanley and Goldman Sachs and many obscure HFT firms to skim a profit from legitimate order flow.If that all stopped? Could these firms pay their debt? No amount of central bank alchemy could stop another panic about the security of bank stocks. It would be yet another example why Glass steagal should be reinstated and banks should not be on Wall Street

High Frequency Trading Publishes False Prices & Hides Layering Conspiracy

High frequency trading firms are in the news today. A Wall Street Journal article features new laser tower technology attempts by HFT traders at getting price discovery closer to zero time elapsed. If these guys can afford this type of investments then it speaks volumes how much money is made from front running orders. HFT accounts for 50% of all trading volume on U.S. stock exchanges. Since the HFT firms are only a relative handful  in aggregate compared to the legitimate order- issuing investing community it follows that their documented 50% total of volume is by definition an illegal trust and self dealing criminal enterprise. And there is more. These roving de facto criminal traders who parse pennies to 4, 5 or more decimal points publish their trades only in round numbers. The layering of who is buying and selling in an effort to boost the price of the shares at  the expense of legitimate orders should be forensically dissected but is hidden by round number publishing. There must be at least two trading firms to walk a stock up or down. There are probably more than that so it is a far reaching racket. They are stealing right under the noses of the S.E.C. The false reporting round numbers  is cause for change , fines or jail time.

Hillary Clinton Speaking Fees At CME Conference: What's For Lunch?

Hillary Clinton was paid $450,000 for a forty-five minute speech at Ritz-Carlton this past November 17, 2014. That was actually a long time when one considers that the CME Global Financial Leadership Conference was paying her a bribe. And CME knew that she had nothing to say. Maybe many attendees availed themselves of the bar or restroom while she spoke. Normal bribes come in envelopes without fanfare. But since Clinton is a possible president-elect in 2016 the CME wanted the appearance of propriety. CME is one of the many umbrella financial organizations that is fighting Wall Street reform. Why? Reform is bad for business. Stealing becomes harder. So if Hillary gets in then CME will have some credit with the new president. Heaven forbid! Speaking of stealing and commodities, Hillary way back in 1978 was under investigation for turning a $1000 investment in cattle futures into a $100,000 profit. At that time hubby Ozarks Caligula Bill was governor of Arkansas. There was an investigation but it went no where. At least one lawyer in every litigation is an accessory to the crime after the fact. Getting back to the $450,000 speaking fee. I dare say that the sum of money is tiny. it amounts to lunch money for Wall Street criminals. Easily financiers pay that sum or less for cocktails and a salad every day. Hillary is the "go for" who also delivers.

Who Is Buying Stocks? Why Is The Market So High?

Who's buying stocks? Why is market so high? Maybe it has something to do with the increase of high frequency trading.Official SEC tallies of exchange volumes has high frequency trading making up 70% of daily volume.This is by definition not investment funds. The HFT computers parse pennies millions of times to front run other computers doing HFT  front running etc ad naseum. But there is another player. It's is the human day trader. He or she add another layer of high speed trading done the old fashion way. I.E. They do it by hand. In the news today, the SEC fined Peter Beck and his associate Charles Kim $250,000 each for failure to supervise their 5000 traders that work at  Swift Trade which is based in Toronto. The fine was failure to stop their stable of traders who range from Romania to New York from entering into conspiracies to "layer trades". Simply "layering" is an euphemism for "front running" . They collude to manipulate stocks . Swift Trade isn't the only day trading firm.So the 5000 day trders at Swift are multiplied by many more counterparts around the globe. The volume that all of them generate must make up a significant prtion of the 30% that computers don't do on a daily basis.

Could the extended levels of the Dow Jones and the S&P be the outcome of manipulation by here today gone tomorrow day traders?

BATS Global Market Exchange IPO: Revenge Hacking Crash ?

Yesterday the slimey BATS Global Exchange IPO got slimed. It's the focus of an SEC investigation of what's wrong with volatile modern day equity markets . Was a 'software bug" to blame? An exchange spokeman said it was. Anyone want to believe a spokeman for a controversial high frequency trading platform whose controversial front running order strategies range to hated? Or was it a hacking revenge event in the publics interest by a dwindling ,fed up minority of honest Wall Street operators ?.The IPO was pulled. It's tough to pull on slime. But where's there's a will there's a way. The offering was priced at $ 16. Moments later it traded at less than a penny. That's ironic because BATS makes mischief by parsing pennies. Slime handlers , Credit Suisse , Citi Group and Morgan Stanley underwriters had to withdraw the offering from the very  exchange that BATS started in 2005. Since that time BATS has grown to handle 11% of toatal equity volume and 3% of option equity contracts in U.S. They got rich. But the SEC and others are wondering what the slime ball firm does for the public interest?

Thank you to ever pulled this sliming off.

George Soros Greed Avoids Government Accounting

The 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said, "The foulest non -productive professional was a Jewish stock operator". Was he describing George Soros? I knew a senior trader who once worked for George Soros. He told me, " That if you ever meet a Hungarian Jew [George Soros], sock him! He will know why! The trader said Soros was slow pay and short pay. In a way,Schopenhauer was somewhat supported in his opinion some 100 plus years later.

Georgy boy is in the news today. He's giving back "outside" managed money because the new Dodd Frank rules have just kicked in. Those rules will require greater reporting by Soros to the SEC about how he makes his money. Conincidentally another repoting requirement also kicked in. It requires high-frequency traders, that includes Soros, to report their trading activity to the S.E.C the FOLLOWING day. That type of trading was responsible for the "flash crash". So his possible destablizing market operations would be quickly examined.

Obviously Soros can't stand regulatory light on behavior. He would have gone no where on Wall Street if the rat traps were better years ago. He should be considered a persona non grata .

Misanthropes News Roundup; It's Going to Get Worse

The Wall Street Journal carries an article that Africa now has a middle class of approximately 313 million. They're buying appiliaces, TVs , cars, disposable items that are packed in throw away packaging. Where's away? They are being added to the recently launced 1.2 billion Chineese middle class who are munching and defecating their way through the planets natural wealth.

Another article last week in the New York Times calculated that the total value of financial derivatives in play is app. $584 trillion! Some prospective would compare that figure with the app. $ 20 trillion value of all real estate in the U.S. In other words, not only have we bet all houses on the outcome of Wall Street bets on stocks through commodites and including payouts on life insurance settlements but we have leveraged the structures app 30 to 1. What could possibly go right with that bet? Commodity price surges have accounted for the riots around the world. Wall Street speculators have contributed to poverty and starvation. You see, when poor people buy wheat or gas, they buy it for one day and pay cash. But when Wall Street "investment" banks and speculators buy wheat or gas, they buy the product of entire fields for months and years to come. AND they buy it on as little as 5% margin.

Osama bin Laden was killed yesterday. Good riddance. But George W. Bush wont get indicted. Actually the little mean spirited moron is still alive, writing books and giving speeches. To recap, the latest news for misanthropes is pretty bleak. But this news does bring new converts to the ranks. Ah well, flu season is coming.

Rodenticide Needed for Wall Street Operators

Today Facebook and China's largest search engine Baidu announced a joint venture. They plan a social network site in China. The news catapulted Baidu to a $50 billion market cap. Gee. That's only one deal. How many other deals happen all the time that create huge market caps? Trillions are created out of thin air. But one can't eat thin air. One needs hard assets to spend this virtual wealth on. Does the planet have another $50 billion of natural assets to be processed into huge homes, expensive cars, near extinct tuna, near extinct tiger parts, etc? Wall Street operators are a kind of sophisticated omnivore rat. They eat plants, animals and waste natural asets with their alchemy of paper value. They give nothing for these millennia year old products of the earth. All things weighed, Wall Strret rats need a rodenticide.

Reasons For Flash Crash:Published & Unpublished

Yesterday the SEC released its long awaited analysis of the Flash Crash that happened in May of this year. The agency concluded that a block of $4.1 billion of Standard & Poors E-Minis futures were sold by Waddell & Reed to hedge a postion. The dollar figure wasn't unusually large. But todays stock market includes ambient algorhythmic fast trading systems . These ambient systems make up 60% of daily volume. These systems are designed to front run legitimate orders rather than fill the orders. I.E. the roving Wall Street pirates steal rather than provide liquidity. They effectively multipled the Wadell & Reed order many times over and swamped the market at large.

All these systems and activities by the Wall Street thugs have been OKed by the S.E.C. Our government is stillowned by Wall Street.

Warren Buffett Lied

Yesterday Warren Buffett gave testimony before Congress on his opinion of Berkshire's large Moodys holding. Specifically Congressman Phil Angilides asked Buffett if Moodys was part of the problem for the sub prime meltdown. I.E. Moodys and other ratings firms gave AAA ratings to mortgage backed securities that turned out to be largely worthless. Buffett answered by saying "mass delusion"infected the country along with Moodys . Therefore Moodys wasn't particularly to blame. Well that's false. How many people would loan money to non documented borrowers? Moodys and other ratings firms not only advised loaning the money but gave a AAA rating. I wonder how many loans Buffett has made during his life to un-documented borrowers?It's time for the greedy man to disappear from the scene.

Machines Run Wall Street Trading

Examining recent volatile charts on Dow Jones and one gets the impression that only nano- second trading machines could leave such foot prints. From down 300 points yesterday to up 100 today without any improvement in fundamental facts that are eating away at the economic base of global business. I.E. the continuing meltdown in financial instruments and institutions. It's safe to say that more and more people who are engaged in the market are not sure what they own or what they are short- trading's the thing. Rather it's their machines trading that's the thing. It's really not trading but a video intimidation stock trading game that's aided by massive amounts of liquidity untethered to real economic events until they are. And then look out.

Goldman Sachs: Death Spiral?

Oh were it to be true that the plunging shares of Goldman Sachs would be a mere prelude to its collapse. That would be wonderful justice to this rogue firm. Its stock is off 14% to 146.00 on news that a criminal investigation has been launched. The SEC filed civil fraud charges last week and referred to the U.S attorneys office its facts on GS for possible criminal prosecution.

Financial service companies can literally disappear overnight if they lose their credibility- witness Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Goldman profited from Bear Stearns and Lehman's demise. What goes around comes around. An extra bonus would be a lessening flow of donations to the Zionist criminal enterprise a.k.a. Israel.

Citigroup Wins in Trading Markets

Citigroup reported a $4.5 billion profit in its latest quarter. It was due largely to trading profits from its brokerage division. Is this a way to run a banking institution? Bank depositors have to carry the burden of hoping their bankers guess correctly when trading stocks, bonds and financial instruments. If not then the deposits end up in someone else's pocket.

The Gods Turn on Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs opened its new $2.1 billion pretentious headquarters. It's a monument to how much money can be made by lying cheats who produce NOTHING. GS Director Rajat Gupta resigns due to allegations he's connected to an unfolding insider trading scandal with Galleon Securities and today the SEC charge GS with civil fraud in a subprime hedge fund offering. This happened all in one week. The gods turn quickly when hubris envelops mortals.

Hopefully the civil fraud turns into a criminal case. Maybe RICO charges may come later if other Wall Street gangsters are shown to be connected to the SEC action. This is necessary. There has to be consequences for the past financial debacle.

Maurice R. Greenberg: Sleaze Expert

Today the Wall Street Journal gave space to the sleazey, disgraced AIG executive Maurice Greenberg. Maury did a piece titled " Six Steps Toward Financial Reform".  

Yes, Maury we know you know how to reform the financial system. Because you were one of the first to identify its weakness' in regulatory oversight and bring on the collapse of your own firm.

Congress Says No To Fixing Wall Street & Everyone Else Should Spend

The Wall Street Journal today carried the news that 4 unnamed, key senators are against limiting proprietary trading by Wall Street firms. This is another example of how we are alone against the gangsters of Wall Street and their contemptable, bribed enablers in Congress. Proprietary trading by banks that have insured deposits by the government is how and why we had the recent financial meltdown in worldwide financial markets. And we are not through with that debacle yet. But our law makers refuse to reform the Street and are setting up an even greater collapse in the future.

The Journal also carried the news in another article that the Wall Street bankers received app. $20 billion in bonus money in 2009. That's a 17%  increase from the year before despite the near depression. There you have it. All it takes is money and congress is yours. 

Meantime Obama and Congress are spending money like drunken sailors and prodding all in the U.S. to spend. How can people or business owners feel secure about the future when the predators of Wall Street are still roaming and still able to financially kill at will?

The New York Times carried an article on how many states are liberalizing their gun laws. Take advantage of these new laws and prepare for the future. Hopefully it won't be necessary but how can one trust in any government?

Where Are The Indictments For Financial Meltdown?

Will anyone go to jail for the financial misdeeds and meltdown? No. Because the heretofore criminal financial manipulations were made legal by the legislation that Congress passed. Wall Street and the bankers bribed our reps. Congress is largely a criminal enterprise. Don't forget .